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Machinist making spy stuff to be on TV Monday night

rivett608

Diamond
Joined
Oct 25, 2002
Location
Kansas City, Mo.
This may be really interesting or embarrassing...... I haven't seen it yet. On Monday evening the PBS show History Detectives is scheduled to do a show where they search out the the machinist that may have made the suicide pin the U-2 pilot Gary Powers was carrying on his famous flight over the USSR. About all I can tell you now is they filmed for a day in part my shop..... we'll just have to see if it makes it to the program or ends up on the cutting room floor ..... Here is what they have on their site;


"The Place: Kansas City, Missouri
The Case: A miniaturist recently rediscovered a purchase he had made at an auction several years before. Wrapped in a newspaper dated 1960 were two peculiar pins that had been manipulated so they could contain some kind of liquid. Could these pins be the actual prototypes of a poison-filled pin that U2 pilot Gary Powers was carrying when his spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union in the early years of the Cold War?

History Detectives heads to Washington D.C. and top secret Army base, Fort Detrick, Maryland to take a closer look at Cold War intrigue and the device that may have fueled the ultimate showdown."

Anyway check out their site for your local broadcast time....
http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/
 
Fanstastic!! Do you know when the episode is going to air? I could not find a schedule online and I don't want to miss it.

Edit: Never mind, looks like it will be on locally June 28th.
 
Hey, I didn't know Fort Detrick was top secret....I'guess I'll have to kill all of you now. :D Just kidding.

There was a big article in the Baltimore Sunday Sun several months ago about the history of Detrick. I don't know about poison pens, but there was an experiment involving darts. The Army wanted a dart that could be shot into a target that couldn't be felt entering. It was tested on sheep and it worked. The dart was shot into the animals while they were grazing and they didn't even look up. Minutes later they died...

There are things that are being conceived now by modern doomsday types that were experimented with in the '50's and '60's. When it's mentioned to an old timer here, they say; "we perfected that back in the '50's...."

Andy Pullen
 
I don't know the history of the whole U2/Powers event, so please don't think I am trying to be a smarta*s, but why didn't he take the poison to avoid capture? Was he incapacitated during the crash?
 
i think that he had time to think about it on his way down.
his hometown in Virgina seems to be pretty proud of him. i pass through there on US 23 on my way to Kentucky the sign proudly states "Home of Francis Gary Powers"...jim
 
According to Ben Rich in "Skunkworks" (highly recommended book) the poison was optional. He also says that many in the CIA thought he was a coward and traitor for not setting off explosives to destroy the plane and taking the poison(thats real easy to say while setting behind a desk). In his defense the U-2 was hit in the tail and it did a nosedive and he barely got out. Powers went on to work at the Skunkworks.

rivett-You'll have to let us know what's like to be famous
. I'll have to catch that.
 
Thought I heard that Gary Powers obtained a job flying news/traffic choppers for a major market TV station in California and was killed when the chopper he was piloting crashed. But I could be wrong.... Charles
 
At the behest of the pentagon the RAF had been flying over the USSR with the high altitude photoreconnaissance version of the Canberra Bomber. The plane flew too high to be intercepted by aircraft or anti-aircraft defences. The Russians were not best pleased by airspace intrusions, especially by what was an atom-bomb capable plane. As any responsible state would, Russia developed a capability to shoot down highflying aircraft.

The US and the UK even taking cold war politics into account were pushing a bit too much, the message being sent, be it intentional or not, was “we can bomb your country whenever we want”.

The U-2 was a partial solution to flying over Soviet territory with a bomber; it could not be interpreted as an attack. Instead of just being flown to gather vital, war stopping intelligence, it is my belief that too many missions were flown, for various reasons. The U-2 was shot down and Francis Gary Powers was captured alive. No one could fathom out why he was still alive. The Russians massively and suspiciously overreacted; at least they did from my vantage point.

I was a five-year-old kid living in the diplomatic community in Moscow, my father worked at the British embassy. We had lived in an apartment block populated by diplomatic families from various nations. There were two Russian guards at the entrance to the block and rather large Russian lady’s in the block writing things in a book whenever you went by. We had a Russian issue servant, you could not opt out of having a servant, you could not employ your own, you were issued with one. The one that we had, immediately told us that here husband worked on the trans Siberian railway, even photographs were shown, the inference was that it could be a one way trip for him.

We spoke English in the apartment, with what now appears to me to be with a very wide vocabulary, whether it was to increase my word power or to test what the servant understood, I do not know. A word would be used, the servant would not know its meaning, the next day she would. Antidisestablishmentarianism was one I remember from the time.

One day in May every thing got much worse, tanks lots and lots of tanks, the building was shaking, the Russians had moved the May day parade tanks outside our block, and left them with the engines running. All the men in the apartment block were spending every hour god sends working at their embassies. Two Turkish friends about my age started running wild, the pressure I suppose. The official account was that the U-2 had been flying over Turkey so I suppose their father had to run around like a blue-arsed fly, trying to sort out the diplomatic consequences.

We were followed everywhere by more people than usual, arbitrary movement restrictions were in place. One other kid in the block had taken to urinating from a balcony on any one below that was in a uniform, if challenged he blamed it on his three year old brother. I forget his nationality, but who taught him that trick, and how as a five year old did he know the Russians could not do much about it?

At another diplomatic housing complex there had been a series of burglaries. A scenario that was virtually impossible, with all the various Soviet security agencies watching everyone. Maximum mess and disruption type of burglaries, the police apparently did apprehend a suspect eventually.

Some of the kids took to dragging around “comfort” blankets with them. Supplies to the commissariat at the embassy were disrupted.

When we left the USSR it was on a Soviet ship, the captain would not unload our belongings, in the UK. We could get off, but our possessions could not. We were advised to stay with our possessions or lose them. The ship actually sailed again with us on board, it put in again at a cargo wharf and our possessions were unloaded, we however, had no safe way of disembarking, and had to climb down a rope ladder. For a five-year-old kid this was an adventure, but in retrospect rather dangerous.

Best regards


Doug Neaves
 
Doug,
I always enjoy your posts. With this one, you've given us a fascinating personal insight into those bizarre and dangerous days.

Jon Bohlander,
I fully agree with your recommendation of 'Skunk Works'. A good read, and an excellent account of the U2 and of Gary Powers' exploits.
 
Great stuff- this Cloak and Dagger business.
Thanks for the story of Moscow.
Oddly, my copy of Star News- the Journal of RAF 31 Squadron Association brings the news that a PR7 Canberra- Photo reccy job was to be restored but WT 509 is being cannibalised for spares on the T4's. I note that volunteer assistants are required to repaint the one in Newark and in our Goldstar colours. Canberra after starting in 1949 is going to be "finally, finally, withdrawn from service in 2006" One wonders whether our Squadron was involved. Red Spies at Night- Shepherds Delight.

Rivett608- it seems like temping providence.
Are you aware that a U2 crashed- somewhere- killing the pilot on the 20th June 2005.
The extra detail is almost the square root of b***** all.

Doug- are you really allowed to write about this?
It's now 56 years since my " Wooden Horse" business. I tried to republish the story of when a certain French gentleman had acid poured on the control wires of the bomber taking him to Scotland! It's the sort of story when a US President appeared with the Russians and within a few days died of a brain haemorrage. A generic title which includes the effect of a well aimed bullet!

So much for a classical education.

Norman
 
Great story Doug....... and J lauffer..."why didn't he take the poison to avoid capture?" well he was never told too...... the U-2 pilots were shown the new "pin" as a replacement for the old "L" pill (cyanide capsule which one of the pilots once got mixed up with his MM's and spit it out quickly).... anyway they were never told anything about capture other than "tell them everything you know because they're going to get it out of you anyway"....... the folks behind this whole thing were so sure that this would never be a issue. One other thing that was a joke is the self de-struck system...... it was not to destroy the plane, only the evidence of what it was doing..... it was only a few pounds of explosive mounted next to the film on the cameras.

Gary Power's took the pin with him on this flight, this was an option by the way, only because he had asked "could this be used as an offensive weapon?"....... that is the way he thought of it......

The whole story of all this is quite interesting....... with brilliant guys like Kelly Johnson, all the clock and dagger stuff and decisions that appear to made by folks with the mentality of Jr. High school boys playing pranks, but with millions of dollars to spend...... due to my interest in this I have read a few books on it and lots of other papers such as transcripts from the trail, his debriefing and hearing before congress........ it will be interesting to see just what makes into the show....
 
One of my high school classmates, Glenn Hyde, was a pilot in the early U-2 flights. We never learned the circumstances of his death, which occurred well before the Gary Powers incident. I wonder if any details ever came out.

Jim
 
Rivett- are you going to show us the peculiar pins or are you going to have to kill us all if you do show?????????

Markus
 
I have a Minox camera with all of the extras, it was given to me by an Army officer, he said it was given to him during a tour of duty in Europe in the 50s.

Many things were developed and used during the cold war, a whole secret industry had developed. Now they look at the highest bidder and can they market the information. Several companies will give you detailed satellite surveys of your property with hidden details of what is under your property. I think that survey was like $20.00

Jerry
 
Jim could it be a Captain Joe G. Hyde Jr. ?....... went down on Nov. 20th 1963 over Cuba..... disapeared from radar about 11am...... he was in plane article 350..... oil slick and wreckage found 40 miles south of Key West.... they searched for 9 days, no remains found.
 
The problem with secret military technology is that it wouldn't be a secret if they told anybody, ever.

We think Area 51 is a super secret research center, but Hangar 18 was where the flying saucers were kept. These could be myths created by the military to hide other facts. I heard today that Hunter Air Field is getting a big increase in personnel and equipment. When I was there, they were worried about being closed and moved to Fort Bragg. While Fort Monroe is being closed as a part of the realignment. Fact or fiction???? Watch cable TV and find out. :D

Jerry
 
Russia was a strange place at the time. As a kid, the thing that I was totally horrified by, and still haunts me today, was the large number of maimed ex- servicemen. The parks and some of the streets were littered with these drunken “Heroes of the Soviet Union”. They had arms, and legs missing and some with horrific facial injuries. This was fifteen years after the war; a lot of drunks freeze to death every winter. There was an absolute army of them dotted all over the city. A drunk laying or sitting on the ground is kid height.

When I derided the Standard Issue Soviet Servant (SISS) about drunken Russians, she told me about the tremendous suffering that the people had gone through in the war and the huge loss of life. Not a Communist propaganda account of history, just matter of fact in a voice of sorrow. (Some sources now quote twenty seven million dead)

As westerners in Moscow we were not as isolated as most, my mother had been sent to Bulgaria I think it was, just after the war, and had to learn Bulgarian. In Russia she spoke Russian with a Bulgarian accent, it must have been very passable, as she chatted to people on the busses and trams engaged in the banter in the local markets. It was just like being in the UK, as there was not a language barrier. As was usual at the time, there were shortages, if you had full shopping bags, strangers would stop you in the street and ask what shops had the supplies that day. Sometimes at the market after a purchase had been made and we were about to leave, the stallholder would give my mother a few more vegetables, saying in Russian “for the child”.

At the start of winter quite a few people stopped us in the street and told my mother off for not getting me a hat. As a lot of the body heat is lost through the top of the head it is essential to wear suitable head covering in a Russian winter, the cold creeps up on you slowly, and then you are dead. I do not know what she said in return, but whatever it was, a red snow suit arrived from Helsinki. The Russians at the time, wore rags wrapped round their shoes, old sacks to give extra layers of clothing, everyone was rather Dickensian. Wearing that red snow suit I stood out in Moscow like a sore thumb. People were now stopping us in the street and asking us what shop sold those suits.

A strange phenomenon was the selling of ice cream in the winter; my favourite I believe was called a Leningradsky. Another slightly odd thing was the mausoleum containing the bodies of Lenin and Stalin, open coffins on full view. There were massive queues of people wanting to pay homage. Whatever their official titles were, to westerners they were known as the “Gruesome Twosome”.

Mixed with the abject poverty of the Russian populace, was the wonderful engineering. I was lucky to visit a huge space exhibition, absolutely amazing equipment. The people there were willing to answer any question I asked. My interest in engineering had started.

ru_ri.jpg


In our apartment, there was a rubbish shoot in the kitchen; this was the only way of getting rid of rubbish, presumably it all ended up in a bin in the basement. I could not fathom out why my mother was obsessed by cockroaches, she would gleefully pour large quantities of chemicals down the shoot. Quite a few years later, I finally twigged; obviously all the rubbish would be screened for anything of interest. The poor saps doing the job must have been struggling with everything drenched in chemicals. The picture is of the SISS; actually she was very nice and had a well-balanced view of the world. I only use the SISS acronym so her name is not published on the web.


RU_em.jpg


ru_em2.jpg


Of great consternation to the Soviets was that the British embassy was in direct line of sight on the Kremlin. The embassy had been established long before radio, aircraft, or modern photography. Now the embassy was a prime site for intelligence gathering, (Not that the British would do or condone such a thing, I hasten to add). It probably was one of the most dangerous places in a crisis involving the Soviets. The pictures are the Kremlin with the embassy gate guard, in the foreground and the Kremlin, taken from the roof of the embassy.

I read that when the U-2 was shot down, a Russian chase fighter was hit by the same salvo and the pilot was killed. As the Russian people had suffered so badly in WW2, the State was duty bound to make sure nothing like that could happen again. With the admission that the U-2 had been shot down over Soviet territory, any lack of confidence in the State by the Soviet people could have lead to civil unrest. The tanks were a back-up should this have occurred, the best place to store them so as not to provoke civil unrest, was in sound of the diplomatic community. There was no civil unrest worthy of note, and the tanks were moved out relatively quickly.

I also read somewhere that Congress stopped the USA over flying Soviet air space with the U-2, the same source indicated that the RAF had then undertaken a mission for a US agency to get round the ban. The possibility was broached that the pilot was American and just attached to the RAF for the convenience of the mission, and that the plane was only on loan to the RAF for the duration of the mission, and the takeoff had been from a shared RAF / US base. The tack taken was that it was a US mission in all but name. It was an American source. As with anything to do with intelligence, government departments or agencies the full-unadulterated truth is never known for certain.

Norman, the answer to the question; “are you really allowed to write about this” Is; whoops too late! Actually, I have left out some of the gap filling information that my father told me in the later stages of his life while he was on morphine, Nothing earth shattering. It is a very accurate account of Moscow at the time, if some bureaucrat thinks it is inappropriate for me to write about it after all this time, it was inappropriate for me to be exposed to it when I was five. ;)


Best regards


Doug Neaves
 
Man I just love this board, what a great thread.
Mr. Neaves, you need to write a book. I wasn't born until 66, makes me a young-ish 39, so I only remember this stuff from history books and TV shows. I am totally absorbed by personal accounts of this nature, the voice of experience is always the clearest. Great job, and get started on that book right now Mr. Neaves.
 








 
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